The various stages of laying the terminal portions of a cable network are still executed conventionally, and largely through manual operations. Connection operations to connect two points a few meters or a few tens of meters apart by means of optical fiber cables are still executed on-site and consist in cutting the cable to the correct length and then preparing the ends of the cable, or of the optical fibers of a cable, with a view to connecting the cable or the fibers by means of connectors or splices. To allow for reworking and repairs, those connection operations necessitate a length of cable that is slightly greater than the distance between the two points to be connected. That surplus length is coiled up by hand and stowed in a corner on completion of the connection operations, leading to risks of kinking, stretching, crushing and failing to comply with the specified radii or curvature of the cable, leading subsequently to transmission problems. Moreover, those connection operations are sometimes made difficult by the conditions under which they have to be carried out, which makes the results somewhat hit and miss and further reduces the reliability of the connections. As a result, the cost of those works represents a relatively large proportion of the total connection cost.
Some network installers have sought to use a cable fitted with a connector and known as a “jumper” cable. In this case, a jumper cable is used that is longer than the distance between the points to be connected, and it is necessary to stow the surplus length of cable.
For unwinding lengths of cable, it is known in the art to use devices consisting of a spool or a drum that has two winding volumes, in order to provide access to and to allow unwinding of both ends of a cable. The cable is wound and unwound manually, with all the attendant risks of stretching and kinking. What is more, the cables are not protected at the periphery of the spool, where they are accessible. Those devices are bulky and generally intended for temporary installations, but are not suited for discreet and permanent stowage of a residual length of cable, for example over several years, either in a dwelling or outdoors.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,109,983 describes a device for stowing a surplus length of an optical fiber cable fitted with a connector at each end. The device takes the form of a flexible support having two chiral circular halves that have holes at their circumference through which the cable and the connector are passed, the flexible support being slightly twisted to enlarge the holes. The fact that the device is divided into two halves enables two continuous sections of the cable to be unwound independently. However, because it necessitates an entirely manual operation consisting in passing the end of the cable to be unwound together with its connector through a larger or smaller number of holes, that device does not provide for packaging and unwinding a cable easily and quickly. Manual operation of the device generates a risk of kinking and twisting the cable which is liable to lead to subsequent transmission problems. That device is therefore not ergonomic and is not suited to easy and fast winding and unwinding of cable.
French Patent application no. 2 814 246 describes a device for packaging a surplus length of cable that includes a stowage support consisting of a flange surmounted by two stowage areas defined by two concentric cylinders which communicate with each other via openings in their walls. Two sections of the surplus length of cable that are continuous with each other are coiled or wound onto each of two concentric cylinders defining the two stowage areas. The ends of the cable and the connectors are stowed inside the internal cylinder. That device can absorb surplus lengths of jumper cable of a few meters. However, the winding operations are still manual, which implies, in that situation also, risks of kinking, stretching, and twisting the cable. Moreover, that device is not adapted to unwinding exactly the required length, since unwinding is manual, and so a residual surplus length at most equal to the diameter of the external cylinder cannot be stowed correctly and is therefore exposed to the risk of kinking, crushing, etc. Also, the cable is not completely protected, which makes that stowage device difficult to use outdoors and makes it necessary to place it in a protected place.